And to further prove that he is quite moronic he stipulates that the offer is for a pre-recorded presentation. Opposition parties, in Rais' mind, may not be too smart either but they are smart enough to remember what Mahathir said a long time ago about 911 being a clever piece of editing and post-production work of fiction. If it can be done to 911 scale it would be a cinch to edit whatever Nik Aziz, Lim Guan Eng, Lim Kit Siang or Karpal Singh says in that 10 minutes, right? We are not stupid la.

Oh wait, wait, wait. Rais said that all political parties would be given 10 minutes’ airtime each on RTM to present their pre-recorded manifestos in the lead up to Election 2013.

10 minutes to present a manifesto??? How can? Wait......BN sure can one. Because why? Because their manifesto will take less than 5 minutes to present. Nothing to say what. Gerrit? NIAMAH!!!

I thought this old antiquated obsolete dinosaur had vanished into thin air only to reappear in his usual stupid mode making even more stupid and niamah statements. Rais oh Rais, he should just immersed himself head first in the nearest pit latrine.

Although PM Najib had announced that he has managed the economy well through the GTP (Government Transformation Programme) and ETP (Economic Transformation Programme), the nation’s national debt is soaring and has doubled from 2007 to 2012.

The value of the ringgit has also gone down in comparison to the Singapore dollar whereas post Merdeka days we were on par with Singapore. Is Najibnomics healthy economics then?

Crime is also on the rise and the recent robbery-cum-rape suffered by an American lady in Malaysia is certainly cause for concern.

Foreign ladies here have had their share of mishaps in recent years – a French lady was murdered while vacationing on an island and a German lady was assaulted while jogging but was fortunate enough to be rescued by her maid who managed to beat off the assailant. Another foreign lady had also met a gruesome death in 2006.

Robberies and snatch thefts are still common.

Najib is only painting a picture of illusory grandeur for the nation and his statements should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

To be modern, a country must be a secular democracy with such sacrosanct values as religious liberty, social tolerance and meritocracy. Tallest building(s) on earth and kris wielding bravado don’t define Malaysia, but government policies and the citizens’ collective morals do.

Onn Jaafar founded Umno in 1946 to advocate for his fellow Malays. In the few years leading up to Malaya’s independence, amid the backdrops of the Arab-Israel conflict and the racial bigotry in parts of the US, his worldliness dreaded what long lasting detriments raced-based political divide would bring to the multi-racial Malay peninsula.

After Umno became a political party, his wisdom, conscience and courage led him to engage other Umno leaders to open its membership to every Malayan regardless of race. At that time, the majority of the populace was non Malay. As it turned out, most of his fellow Malay leaders succumbed to their primal instincts that only Malays were predisposed to promote or support the social economic welfare of the Malays, and rejected his noble proposition and bereaved not only Umno but also the new country under his great leadership.

For a lifetime since then, Umno has wrested almost complete political control of the land, first by engineering Singapore’s expulsion from Malaysia to rid itself of any challenge from Lee Kuan Yew’s statesmanship, then by continuously badgering other political opponents with various scare tactics under the Internal Security Act.

Deplorable in design and dire in consequence, Umno’s refusal to admit non Malays brought the country racial tension and religious animosity, against the letter and spirit of Merdeka, which founding fathers Tunku Abdul Rahman, Lee Hau Shik, VT Sambathan Thevar and other leaders inclusively achieved (in 1957) as and for all Malayan citizens, not only Malays.

Unchecked, remedial government actions undertaken over the decades to aid the Malays have morphed into codified discriminatory policies at the expense of all other ethnic groups. In the process, some Umno leaders have exploited their political positions or connections for dubious largess.

It’s well documented that such graft amounted to billions of euros, dollars and ringgits. Festered with nepotism and corruption, such leadership continues to poison the hearts and minds of the citizenry regardless of religion and race. For good measure, Singapore has leapfrogged Malaysia to become a modern society. By 2012, the island nation’s estimated GDP per capita stood at US$62,000, more than four times that of Malaysia’s.

Malaysians would likely demand more and vote smarter if they are better informed. In this digital age, it’s up to a new generation of political leaders to put an end to this tribal and backward political system. As such, this coming general election is indeed a referendum to Umno’s racial exclusionary and therefore discriminatory policy.

Those gifted and capable must not let material temptations acquiesce in the name of Malay unity. They must not tacitly vote for Umno to keep its leaders from plundering the country, stroking racial and religious hatred, and continuing its divisive and subversive platforms. They must curtail the bad and preserve the good, in the spirit and with the courage of Onn Jaafar.

If the new leadership succeeds in the coming months, they would help to dismantle this cancerous political apparatus and the root cause for today’s corrupt culture, putting Malaysia on the right path to modernity. If defeated, they surely can take solace in knowing that their efforts will encourage others to take up the cause to mend the wrongs of their country.